9 Replies - 7230 Views - Last Post: 27 September 2013 - 02:33 AM

[LINK]Microsoft's Steve Ballmer to retire

Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer shocked the technology world on Friday by announcing he would step down within 12 months, ending a tenure marked by the software giant's declining dominance and struggles to keep pace with its competitors.

Replies To: [LINK]Microsoft's Steve Ballmer to retire

Re: [LINK]Microsoft's Steve Ballmer to retire

Posted 25 August 2013 - 04:59 AM

Too late. Perhaps he plans to initiate another company's death spiral?

Strangely, I can't think of Ballmer without thinking of Caligula. Caligula, perhaps the most infamous of Roman emperors, was preceded by Tiberius, who ended his reign in disgrace. Some historians have thought ( perhaps unjustifiably, but amusingly ) that being followed by the tyrant Caligula was postmortem PR genius on the part of Tiberius, whose prior regime could only be seen as the golden years in comparison.

Of course, it's also hard to think of Ballmer without thinking of Young Frankenstein...

Re: [LINK]Microsoft's Steve Ballmer to retire

Posted 25 August 2013 - 05:55 AM

Ballmer inherited a large company with a lot of momentum. Microsoft was THE industry leader. Today this is not the case.

Quote

#1 Steve Ballmer, Microsoft
Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today. Not only has he singlehandedly steered Microsoft out of some of the fastest growing and most lucrative tech markets (mobile music, handsets and tablets) but in the process he has sacrificed the growth and profits of not only his company but “ecosystem” companies such as Dell, Hewlett Packard and even Nokia. The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value – and jobs.

Re: [LINK]Microsoft's Steve Ballmer to retire

Re: [LINK]Microsoft's Steve Ballmer to retire

Posted 30 August 2013 - 07:58 AM

I just hope that they don't pull a 180 with their direction. If any other company had come out with the surface (and maybe even windows 8-style OS) they would be touted as visionaries and thinking outside the box. The problem was that neither of the above were what people expected Microsoft to do, so it was met with resistance. Does that mean it is bad? I don't think so, just that they still had some work to do until it was usable by their general audience. The surface looks intriguing, and if I ever get a tablet that will likely be what it is. Windows 8 on the other hand cripples my workflow and as a result isn't ready for me to use (right now for instance, I have 5 windows being displayed on 3 monitors (1 of which is a VM, in which I have an additional 7 windows). I look at and interact with all of them frequently. Attempting to limit that to the metro UI doesn't work out for me).

Re: [LINK]Microsoft's Steve Ballmer to retire

Posted 30 August 2013 - 09:20 AM

Wait, the Surface would have done fine if someone else had made it?!?

Perhaps if BlackBerry made it... no, not good. Well, HP then? No, no, not good at all. The list of companies that tried to take on iPad's niche and failed are Legion. Big companies, big money, big failure.

Of course, Microsoft went the extra mile, putting a crippled clone of Windows 8 on a ARM processor and then being inexplicably surprised when customers complained it didn't work like their desktop. Strangely, they did the same thing years earlier with pretty much any device they put Windows CE on.

Tech people love to bash Microsoft, but market share isn't about tech people, it's about Everyman. Microsoft has been actively alienating that demographic with each "innovation" for the past decade.

Re: [LINK]Microsoft's Steve Ballmer to retire

Re: [LINK]Microsoft's Steve Ballmer to retire

Posted 27 September 2013 - 02:33 AM

BetaWar, on 30 August 2013 - 03:58 PM, said:

Windows 8 on the other hand cripples my workflow and as a result isn't ready for me to use (right now for instance, I have 5 windows being displayed on 3 monitors (1 of which is a VM, in which I have an additional 7 windows). I look at and interact with all of them frequently. Attempting to limit that to the metro UI doesn't work out for me).

Windows 8 doesn't stop you from working like you have been, barring the fact the Start screen replaces the start menu.

Don't just assume it limits you to Metro UI because quite honestly it doesn't. You can still have 3 monitors and have all the windows open you want. If you pin your stuff to the Taskbar or like me use the run command heavily you may never need to bring up the start screen. Multi monitor support is also miles better in Windows 8

The start screen is different in looks but functionality wise it isn't all that far away - for instance on the start screen you can just start typing to find your app - just like on Windows 7. The start screen is kind of like the pinned area of the start menu but bigger - the only slight usability draw back is getting to a lit of all apps.

Windows 8.1 has also done a lot of work to make switching between the two a lot less jarring which I will admit it is at first and has addressed some of the above as well.

The biggest failure with Windows 8 and Windows RT isn't necessarily the OS it's the lack of help and support to go with the change and crappy marketing not properly differentiating the platforms. Windows 8 is different, some people don't like change, but once you look past that there is a lot to like... it just takes time.

This post has been edited by danny_kay1710: 27 September 2013 - 02:34 AM